Trump rejects revised Puerto Rico death toll, tweets ‘3000 people did not die’ in hurricanes

Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Trump said 3,000 people “did not die” due to hurricanes in Puerto Rico last year — then blamed the Democrats for releasing numbers that he called misleading.

“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000,” he tweeted Thursday.

“This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who has been in a war of words with Trump over the federal response to Hurricane Maria, shot back minutes later Thursday morning.

“Mr Trump you can try and bully us with your tweets BUT WE KNOW OUR LIVES MATTER,” she tweeted. “You will never take away our self respect. Shame on you!”